“Why Autistic Men Attract Toxic Women”

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. You ever look back on a relationship and say, what the hell was that? You were loyal. You were emotionally consistent. You were honest, and you tried to do everything right. But her, she was emotionally inconsistent, or as I heard one person call it, emotionally incontinent. Perfect. She was a roller coaster. One minute she's crying, the next minute she's all over you sexually. The next minute she is avoiding you. She's accusing you of wrongdoing. Stuff that you would never conceive of doing because you are very honest and you pride yourself on your morals and doing the right thing. But she insists that no, you did things wrong. She's sure of it. And she ghosts you and she ignores you for days on end. If you are a neurodivergent man, more specifically an autistic man, whether diagnosed or not, this is something that is probably very familiar to you., and you have asked yourself, why does this keep happening to me? Autistic men, those who do not have a lot of relationship experience, they don't have a lot of role models for how to, you know, properly navigate the relationship waters, the turbulent relationship waters, tend to attract a certain type of woman. She is emotionally volatile and deeply insecure. And also manipulative. But this manipulation can be disguised as passion. And she also has traits of what is known as borderline personality disorder, a disorder that falls under the category of a Cluster B personality disorder. These women crave validation, and at the same time, they fear abandonment, and they latch on to anyone that gives them a steady grounded energy. And guess what autistic men bring to the table? Consistency, honesty, loyalty, and a calming presence. Autistic men don't play games, and they take people at their word, and they are often very forgiving, but to a fault. They tend to overlook a lot of those red flags that leave the rest, more neurotypical men, to run for the hills. But instead, the autistic men just stay put and stay right where they are, and they pride themselves on their steady nature. The autistic man's demeanor is catnip to someone who is addicted to emotional chaos and has intense fear of being alone. Here is how these relationships typically go down in the beginning, how the trap is set, so to speak. The autistic man meets the, let's say, borderline gal. And the passion up front is extremely intense. The autistic man has never felt so seen and so heard and so validated. She love bombs the man with attention, vulnerability, affection, and yes, sex. And the autistic man thinks, finally, somebody who gets me. But then the cracks start to show on the surface, don't they? She becomes very, very jealous over the smallest things, and she accuses you of not caring. She accuses you of abuse. She starts crying during very little innocuous disagreements. And because you're trying to be a good partner to her, you look inward. And a lot of you know that you are in fact neurodivergent or autistic, and you say, well, this just must be another example of my autism. Getting in the way of connecting with a very real, you know, neurotypical person. This is how relationships must be. And so you do the dance of just walking on eggshells. You bend over backwards to keep the relationship going. You become the fixer. And what started out in your mind as love now becomes emotional blackmail. So why do these men stay in these relationships? Well, number 1, As an autistic man, relationships don't come easy and they certainly don't stick around very long. So these men feel lucky to be in a relationship, especially when the early stages of the relationship were so validating and yes, so sexual. So the man is very reluctant to start all over. He doesn't think he's ever gonna see any of that again. These men also confuse emotional intensity for love. If you're feeling these, you know, really big swings, these big highs, these ups and downs, then that must mean that this is something real, right? And these men were taught never to trust their gut because their gut has been wrong all this time. They've been told they can't trust their gut because they are autistic. Their gut is, quote, broken. So when someone turns the blame back on them, they believe it. And this dynamic creates a cycle of abuse which has been disguised as a passionate love story. Being autistic does not make you defective. It does not make you weak. It does not mean that you are destined to become somebody's emotional punching bag. It means that you need clarity and you need structure and you need emotional safety in your relationship. Not chaos. So, what can you do? Number 1, slow things down. Chaos thrives in speed. Number 2, watch her patterns. Watch what she does, not what she says. If she has a lot of past breakups, past failed relationships, and she blames all of them for the problems and not her, she never has a moment of introspection or accountability, That's not good. Ask yourself, do I feel calm around her or am I always on edge? That's your nervous system telling you something. And you want to get around other men who have been through this. Guys who can help guide you. Mentors. Positive mentors who have been there and done that. All of this stuff is not easy. But But you need to learn it, and the sooner the better, because the sooner you will realize what it is that you are doing to attract these kind of people to you and to hang on to them. If any of this is hitting close to home, I invite you to check out the brotherhood, the Help for Men brotherhood at helpformen.com, or you can jump right to the join page at helpformen.com/join. It is a private group for men, many of which are admittedly neurodivergent. And we get together in private discussion forums. No one can see what it is you're talking about outside of the forums. We get together in private live Zoom meetings. You have access to all of my books. You can book time, one-on-one time with myself or other members of the team. And we even get together in person in conferences in the US as well as in Australia. Oh, and by the way, if you're a guy who likes audio content, which a lot of men do, we have over 1,200 hours of audio content for you to listen to, and we add to it every single week. You're never going to run out of stuff to listen to. So guys, you're not crazy, you're not broken, you've just been trying to find peace within relationships with people who thrive in chaos. Let's change that.